


What are those?

by Chevrolet_Charm



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Hearing Impaired, Miscommunication, No Smut, Reader is a Hunter, Talking, friendships, general relationship, inclusive, learning about each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 21:07:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29160144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chevrolet_Charm/pseuds/Chevrolet_Charm
Summary: When the reader makes a simple request it gets misconstrued by the boys and they have to figure out how to come to terms with it like adults.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Reader, Dean Winchester/You, Sam Winchester & You, Sam Winchester/Reader
Comments: 1
Kudos: 15





	What are those?

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I wrote a hearing impaired reader. This is not representative of all of the deaf and hard of hearing community. 
> 
> Remember if its not your cup of tea you don't have to read it!

"Hey, Dean, can you pick up something for me from the store?" you slurred slightly as you spoke.   
  
"Yeah, whatcha' need?" Dean grabbed Baby's keys and his coat.   
  
"Batteries."   
  
"For what?” His eyes went wide. “Wait don't answer that question,” he added mock horror in his tone.” Don't you have a re-charging wall plug thingy?"    
  
“Not for  _ that _ .” A blush rose to your cheeks. “For my ears.”   
  
"Your ears?" Sam asked as he walked into the room.   
  
"Yeah, my hearing aids.”

They continued to stare at you with furrowed brows and blank expressions.

“Do you two pay attention to anything beside food, hunts, and beer?” You sighed; like Dean already regretting the question. “It’s fine. I’ll get them myself.” 

You took the car keys from Dean, and grabbed your hoodie and your wallet.   
  
The heels of your boots thumped loudly, and quickly on the concrete floor; and a moment later the front door closed with a loud bang. Sam gaped after you before looking at Dean. Dean had his shoulders pulled into himself and his head drooped, after the door closed.    
  
"She wears hearing aids?" Sam asked Dean.   
  
"This is the first I've heard of it." Dean whispered back.   
  
"So we do some research while she's out, and when she gets back we talk about it?" Sam set off towards the library, his laptop and his brain working overtime.   
  
"I'll comb the Men of Letters stuff, and you man the Internet. Capiche?" Dean pulled down a book on the human body, and one a little further away on healing injuries.   
  
Meanwhile at the store, you sighed, disappointed because they don't have 312s, the size you needed. So you bought a case of beer and a bag of ice, and threw both into the cooler in the backseat.   
  
As you headed to the next store on your list, you considered what you would tell the boys. 

You were tempted to come clean and tell them everything, but you feared the repercussions of that option most of all. This led you to the second choice, ignoring the issue and letting it blow over. The toll it would take on you, though, would never rival the pressure you would get from the boys. A third option remained. Leaving, lifting the burden of your dead weight from them and going off on your own.

_ Yeah, that'll go over real well. _ _   
_   
You walked up and down the aisles until you found the battery section, and— _ aha! _ —they have 312s. You grabbed their entire supply and, fake credit card in hand, headed to the check out. The cashier scanned them, and the other stuff you were buying. You swiped your fake credit card, and signed the key pad. Grabbing the bags, you headed back to Baby and swapped out some of the beers for waters and Gatorades.   
  
Your phone started to ring as you slid into the driver seat. Checking it you saw Dean's name pop up.

  
"What do you want?” You snap. 

"I want you to come back,” he snaps back at you. 

“Wow, no pie, no beer,” you note. “You must have something important in mind.”

“Can we please discuss this like adults?”   
  
"Hey, we get that this might be a touchy topic, (y/n), we just want to support you." Sam interrupted, before Dean could push you further away.   
  
"Ok, fine, I’m coming back to the bunker, and I’ll tell you about it when I feel comfortable," you said venomously.   
  
"Ok, that's fair," Sam said as they hung up.   
  
You braced yourself for an ambush.   
  
Meanwhile back at the bunker, Sam had narrowed it down to three things. 

"So she's either born with or got it before we came along. Could be a birth defect, or from shooting too many guns without hearing protection. From what I can tell, it's permanent, and the only treatment is hearing aids, surgery or a cochlear implant." Sam told Dean, and spun the laptop around so Dean could see the screen.   
  
"You got more than me. The Letters got nothing other than that gunshots can cause it. So, we can't fix this one with a spell," Dean said as he scanned the website quickly.   
  
"Nope, and I think she probably has everything she could to handle the problem. We just have to wait for her to open up about it," Sam sighed.   
  
"But what if it becomes a liability, or a problem?" Dean asked.   
  
"She's been with us for two years already and we’ve never even noticed. It must not hinder her, or we would have put it together by now, although that does explain why she never goes out in the rain, and why she slurs in the morning." Sam answered.   
  
The boys both jumped when the bunker door slammed open, then closed. 

"Honey, I'm home." You shouted out.   
  
"Hey, that took a while. Everything alright?" Sam asked.   
  
"Yeah, I’m fine,” you nodded, “We’re not talking about this now, got it?" You walked out of the room to put the food away in the kitchen.   
  
Dean shot Sam a look, then followed you out into the hallway, towards the kitchen.   
  
"You do realize that we aren't going to kick you out over this? That we care about you? That we don't want you to have to face this alone?!?" Dean was shouting by the end of his spiel.   
  
"Well, forgive me if I tried to keep it a secret. Everyone else who found out kicked me out or thought I was a cripple afterwards. Even my own parents babied me. Hunting was the only way I could be equal," you said, nearly in tears.   
  
"What?!? We didn't even know until a few hours ago. How did anyone ever figure it out?" Dean near-whispered.   
  
"I would tell them, like hello, I am (y/n), I love horses and I wear hearing aids. End of story." You stormed away.   
  
Dean stared after you, shocked, and wondering how anyone would think that THAT made you weaker, lesser, much less a cripple.   
  
Sam had heard the whole exchange, and sighed deeply, knowing Dean didn't know when to let you have your space.   
  
A few weeks passed, and things still were not back to normal. Every time you weren’t looking at the boys or in their direction, they were looking at you; Dean in awe and Sam in shock and wonderment.   
  
When they talked to you, they treaded carefully, as if one wrong word would set you off. In the mornings, you never had to make your coffee anymore, and they always let you have first shower. It was nice, but unusual. When you guys stopped to eat and to talk about cases, there were awkward, silence filled gaps in the conversations.   
  
The three of you get back to the bunker after the hunt, then you suggest talking about it in the morning. You all clean up and go to sleep.   
  
"That's great. We will support you fully even if we don't know the full story," Sam said, smiling gratefully at you.   
  
"Not to be a downer, but I miss how we used to be. How we used to joke and tease. This awkward shit is weird and, quite frankly, I hate it," Dean told you, candidly.   
  
"Yeah, same. And I miss making my coffee in the morning. I am not telling you to stop, but I can do it for myself."   
  
"Yeah we'll back off. We do it because we care." Sam said.   
  
"I know, so let's finish this case and gank this idjit, so we can get home. I haven't had a full night's sleep since whenever we started this whole mess, with my ears and all." You got up, paid the check and walked out to Baby.   
  
A day or so later, you all walked out of the creature's lair, if it could even be called that, covered in blood, and ichor, and Chuck knows what else. You were all glad no one WAS injured enough to need Cas to heal you, and that the hunt was finally over so you could go home. After a long drive, and having to listen to Dean moan about the blood on Baby's interior, you were ready to clean up and collapse.   
  
"We will talk in the morning, after coffee and a full night's sleep. Got it?" You headed towards your bathroom.   
  
"Sure thing, sweetheart. See ya in the morning," Dean and Sam chime in, headed towards their respective rooms.   
  
In the shower you thought about when you would inevitably have to tell them about it.

After you showered, you headed off to bed. As you took your hearing aids out, you stared at them, wishing they weren't such a liability for you, and for Dean and Sam.   
  
The boys wandered about aimlessly for a little while, before finally going to sleep. You slept like the dead, which was pretty typical for you.   
  
You woke up to the smell of bacon, which was quite unusual, seeing as your room is on the other side of the bunker from the kitchen. So you rolled out of bed, in the least graceful way, and onto the floor. When you rolled over and faced the door, you saw both of the boys standing there looking down at you in amusement.   
  
"Mornin' Sleeping Beauty," Dean said, breaking the silence.   
  
Sam sighed and spotted you pointing at a small lidded container. He walked over and handed it to you. You unscrewed the cap and pulled out two silvery, wired, hearing aids and slipped them into your ears; pushing the backs over your ears and the microphones inside. A few seconds later you heard, a soft, musical tone, alerting you that your “ears” were awake. 

"Care to try that again?" You said pointedly towards Dean, who looked down at his feet, embarrassed.   
  
"Good morning, Sleeping Beauty. Shall we eat breakfast?" He said offering you a hand to get up. After a few stumbling steps, Sam got impatient and scooped you into his arms, and you giggled. Sam and Dean both smiled at your happiness.   
  
As Sam carried you into the kitchen, you saw plates of bacon, fruit, and fluffy pancakes set out with syrup, chocolate chips, and whipped cream. You squirmed happily and Sam let you down, setting you on your feet, pointed towards the food. When you got a full plate and sat down, Dean handed you a cup of coffee, prepared just the way you like it.   
  
After everyone made it through their first plate and had gotten their second, you started to slow down. 

"So... I was born with hearing impairment, worse in my left ear. I have the Mondini Deformity, which causes the spiral part of your eardrum to not form properly, it ends up looking like spaghetti. I have had my 'ears' since I was four. I don't need to be babied and I can handle it on my own," you blurted out, anxiously.   
  
"Um...Okay, we weren't trying to imply that you were helpless or incapable. But what about the water thing?" Sam prompted.   
  
"The water thing? Oh, you mean like in the rain or when I have to shower. Well they aren't waterproof or gore-proof, so usually I take them out or try to shield them from the liquid."   
  
"How have you dealt with this for so long and we never noticed?" Dean burst out.   
  
"I’ve gotten very good at hiding it, and my ‘normal’ is keeping it on the down low. Most people don't notice unless something happens, like if it rains, or if they try to spray me with the hose or something. That's why when it's my turn to wash Baby, I prefer to do it alone because I know the two of you would try to spray me or prank me, and you didn't know about this."   
  
You laughed, knowing the antics the boys got up to when they washed the car. Usually, one of them ended up soaking wet with the other crowing satisfactorily when they came running to you. Or one got pie to the face, and if it was Dean, he complained about how Sam had just wasted a perfectly good pie for nothing. Sam must have been thinking of the same things you were, because he gave you an apologetic look.   
  
"Also, Dean's whistling habit drives me through the roof. The whistling activates the feedback in my ears. It sounds like an amp that's been left on and the guitar that's attached isn't being played. So, highly annoying, if I'm being honest."   
  
"Sorry, I'll try to break that habit. If my whistling bothers you, what about dog whistles, and the windows in the car?"   
  
"I can hear dog whistles, and the wind noise nearly kills me, but I turn 'em off in the car to save batteries anyway."   
  
"How does that work? The batteries I mean?" Dean looked you dead in the eye before bursting out laughing at how your face blooms bright red and you leaned away from the table.   
  
"What... I am so lost?!" Sam flicked back and forth between the both of you. You and Dean laughed until you cried, and he can't breathe.   
  
"This whole thing started when I asked him," you point at Dean, "to pick up batteries and he thought it was for SOMETHING ELSE." You placed extra emphasis on the last part of your statement. "And the batteries are size 312s and I have to change them every week and a half or so, just fyi."   
  
"Well, way to go Dean. Way to be an ass to the girl who saves us on a regular basis..." Sam slapped Dean upside the head.   
  
"I wouldn't care anyway. I thought it was funny in the store, after the fact," You said to Sam.   
  
"...well who wants more pancakes?" Dean got up and headed to the stove, but not before you nearly tackled him. He tried to keep his balance but slid to the floor anyways, laughing at your squealing and wondering how a girl who had no problem taking down a vampire, freaks out at being dropped from someone's arms.   
  
Sam came over and joined y'all on the floor, laughing the whole way at the girl with the silver ears and thinking about how she brought the sunshine they didn't know that they needed.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it! 
> 
> Come join the discord and check out the schedule for upcoming posts:   
> https://discord.gg/mbkj78Jxbe


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